Adoption as an Option

She is also considering adoption, placing her child with an adoptive family after the baby is born.

"It's a scary place and sort of a '˜limbo' place as I am not 16 and in high school, not 18 and in college," Victoria states. "I'm 31 and there isn't a lot of resources for '˜older' women in unplanned pregnancies."

I know how she feels because it wil be ten years ago this August that I, too, placed my daughter for adoption in a semi-open arrangement.

Now I reflect back to 2001 when I started giving my birth daughter a Little House on the Prairie book out of the series each year to be able to read all of them when she got older. In no time, she had the whole set of books from the series.

Well, at our visit this past December, her adoptive mom told me that my birth daughter had just started reading the first book and was enthralled with it. Then, coincidentally her class started studying that era and "Little House on the Prairie: The Movie" was shown in school, the one from my childhood. My birth daughter was captivated and she said, '˜Wow!'

Ever since then she has been reading those books like crazy.

"I was actually dead set on raising my child but around the sixth month I realized that a lot of factors in my life do not enable me to provide for or raise a child," Victoria writes. "I guess I have a big decision to make."

On the April 11 "NBC Nightly News," Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute and an adoptive parent himself said that "The crying need is for post-adoption services."

"That's where we can compensate for what came before and that's how we can help families be successful," he stated.

The next day Pertman gave an interview with the New England Cable News, reminding viewers that "Adoption is not child rental" regarding '˜A Closer Look at the Russian Adoption Scandal' when an adoptive mom put her child on a plane, sending him back to his country due to not being able to handle his aggressive behavior.

The Illinois Senate on April 21 passed HB 5428, which grants adult adoptees access to their original birth certificate unless the birth mom asks to remain anonymous, according to the Institute's newsletter.

Haiti started accepting new applications for the adoption of children who were either documented as orphans prior to Jan. 12 or who were relinquished by their birth parents since the earthquake in that country, according to an April 27 notice from the U.S. State Department.